What Really Matters
by lovesbitch4spike
Summary: W/T mention of K. Spoilers for The Killer In Me. Is Willow really ready to move on? She thinks not, and so does her one true love.


What Really Matters

Rated: PG

Description: W/T, K mentioned

Spoilers: The Killer In Me, Season 7

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Except for an ibook, some flowered sundresses and a small collection of Patricia C. Wrede books. So it certainly wouldn't do any good to sue me. Especially if you did own rights to Buffy, like Fox, UPN or Joss. Frivolous lawsuits lead to bad karma.

**********************************

Willow laid looking at the empty spot beside her in the bed.

"Do you love me?" Kennedy had asked her.

"No," Willow had answered in all honesty.

And with that Kennedy had left her side.

Willow had tried to love Kennedy. Anything was better than that empty hole she felt in her very being. She hated the hollow shell that she had become, that she had allowed the world to make of her. Surely it would have been better to have never loved? No that was a lie. To love and lose was better than to never have loved at all. She just wished that she had died along with Tara. That the bullet had torn her apart too. In a way it had.

Tara had appeared to her in a dream. At least she thought it was a dream. Hard to tell with first evils running around. She had told Willow that it was all right to move on. Willow had tried to believe her.

Hence the going out on a date with Kennedy. After all Kennedy did like Willow, which was one quality all of the redhead's former beaus had had. she was reasonably attractive, though Dawnishly young. In fact perhaps Kennedy and Dawn would have made the better couple. You know, if Dawn was into that whole thing. They both did have their rebellious sides in common. Goddess, what was she turning into Yente? No matchmaking. No matchmaking. Especially between her best friend's sister and the girl she had just rejected.

Willow had tried. She had felt so guilty that she had become Warren. Except that in the end that kiss had saved her. Because she realized that she didn't need to feel guilty. Because that kiss hadn't meant a thing. Her exact thoughts had been, it never felt like this when I kissed Tara. Because with Tara there had always been magic. And not the scary metaphoric crack addiction kind.

And so she had told Kennedy, "No."

She didn't love her.

Truth be told Kennedy couldn't have really loved her back and Willow knew it. Not this soon. And not how things had been lately. Willow hadn't been herself for ages, so how could Kennedy fall in love with a person she hadn't even met. Love at first sight was lust. Admiration at first site, well that could turn into love. That's what she had had with Tara. But lets hop into bed before knowing anything about one another besides our hair color? That rarely led to anything pure and good.

And so Willow lay in bed wondering if she had made a mistake. Perhaps she should have gone more slowly. Perhaps love could have grown between them. Perhaps she was turning down a chance at happiness. Perhaps happiness was something she would never have again.

Tara, she thought, I don't want to move on. I just want you.

She blinked her eyes as Tara once more appeared before her. Was she dreaming again?

"Am I dreaming again?"

"Yes," Tara told her, "And no. I'm sorry."

"About what?" Willow reached for her. Contact. No scary Cassie first evil here. Truly Tara was so pure that not even the ultimate source of evil itself had dared touch her.

"About telling you to move on. I wanted you happy."

"I want to be happy. But I can't. Not with someone else. I can't replace what we had. What's more, I don't want to."

Tara sat beside her on the bed. "When I died, why did you contact the powers of darkness first?"

"Because I wanted you back. Because I would do anything to ... oh I see." Why had she turned to evil? Didn't miracles usually come from benevolent beings? "You're saying I should ...?"

"Make a wish. Sometimes miracles come true." Tara looked out the very window that had shattered in the taking of her life.

Willow watched the star fall. She closed her eyes. Out of the deepest depths of her heart she wished that Tara were with her, alive.

She opened her eyes. Tara lay beside her. "Sometimes wishes do come true," she told her lover.

Willow did not pinch herself. If it were only a dream, let her dream the rest of her life away. She would not mind. "You don't mind? I didn't take you from a better place?" The old insecurities crept in.

"Willow I'm with you. There is no better place."

Ubervamps and hormonal slayers in training be damned. Let the world end, she wouldn't care. Willow had Tara again. That's all that really mattered.


End file.
